Tackling Algorithmic Disability Discrimination in the Hiring Process: An Ethical, Legal and Technical Analysis

TL;DR

This paper examines the ethical, legal, and technical challenges of AI-driven hiring systems that may discriminate against persons with disabilities, proposing a roadmap for addressing these issues.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of disability discrimination in AI hiring, highlighting unique challenges and offering initial guidelines for ethical and legal considerations.

Findings

Identifies specific ethical and legal challenges in AI hiring for PWDs

Highlights the adverse impact of AI systems on persons with disabilities

Proposes a roadmap for future research and policy development

Abstract

Tackling algorithmic discrimination against persons with disabilities (PWDs) demands a distinctive approach that is fundamentally different to that applied to other protected characteristics, due to particular ethical, legal, and technical challenges. We address these challenges specifically in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) systems used in hiring processes (or automated hiring systems, AHSs), in which automated assessment procedures are subject to unique ethical and legal considerations and have an undeniable adverse impact on PWDs. In this paper, we discuss concerns and opportunities raised by AI-driven hiring in relation to disability discrimination. Ultimately, we aim to encourage further research into this topic. Hence, we establish some starting points and design a roadmap for ethicists, lawmakers, advocates as well as AI practitioners alike.